European flavor meets California style with this unique home at the base of Sugar Bowl
In this age of dazzling mountain architecture, an increasingly common goal of designers is to create site-responsive homes that allow buildings to blend seamlessly into their natural surroundings.
Mork Ulnes...

When Martis Camp received the green light to begin residential construction in 2006, the ambitious project hit the ground running—straight through the country’s worst economic downturn in over 70 years, and with barely a hitch. With momentum on its side, it emerged from the recession...

Alps style meets a Tahoe retreat
It would be the perfect birthday present.
That’s what the Atherton, California–based owner thought when viewing the in-progress spec home at Martis Camp. She and her husband had been looking for a second home at mountain locations like Deer Valley,...

During the initial phase of this Martis Camp project, the owners wanted nothing more than a durable second home that catered to their family’s active lifestyle. But as the project evolved, so, too, did their tastes and desires.
“We started off more on the...

Aside from its visual appeal, the home at Martis Camp lot 545 features useful accommodations for every member of the family—even Kobe the cat.
Thanks to the clever minds behind the project, Kobe, a 16-pound ragdoll breed, can handle his business in the privacy...

Like many of Tahoe’s 1970s-era homes, the house in Alpine Meadows showed its age: low ceilings, an uninviting entryway, outdated spaces and, above all, a failure to capture its stunning surroundings.
“The main goal of the client was to increase the size and openness of...

Given the number of awe-inspiring projects they work on, Tahoe’s home designers don’t typically prefer to discuss their spec projects. But this Martis Camp home is no ordinary spec.
“The team behind the project approached it as if they were designing their own home....

By any measure, architect Julia Morgan was unprecedented in her field.
Among many noteworthy accomplishments, she was the first woman to graduate the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and go on to have decades of success, stacking up over 700 projects throughout an...

What’s an architect to do given a two-story-tall mound of boulders in the middle of a homesite? For Dennis Zirbel, the answer was obvious: Take full advantage of it.
“Not many homesites have that kind of a natural feature to work with,” the Truckee-based architect...

John Huster and Aiwah Chang wanted a home that felt like part of a community in Tahoe. They found what they were looking for in a 2,277-square-foot property in Dollar Point, but the house itself was small, outdated and lacked a garage.
Behind the expertise...